Blossoms
by Jordan K. Thomas
Summary: They wanted the memory of her to be washed away, like it never happened. Like she never existed. Because she doesn't anymore. Brittany dies and Santana and Finn grieve over their first love. Brittana/Fritters
1. Marigold

There are some things you can't get out your head. Things like the way a girl you have a crush on walks, road kill on the side of the road, the electric feeling of an oncoming performance, the taste of your favorite food, or the moments when you first fell in love.

In their case, it just would not go away. They wanted the memory of her to be washed away, like it never happened. Like she never existed. Because she doesn't anymore.

Santana wanted to pour bleach in her brain, to fry every memory out of her head. She wanted to be anyone, anywhere, anytime else. She just didn't want to be.

Finn wanted to pretend, act like she was just a made-up character he used to dream up when he was younger. That the sound of her voice was just nothing he'd ever had really heard. Her face was just something that was stuck in his mind. Her watery-blue eyes a color that wasn't possible.

If it was up to them, Brittany Pierce had never really existed at all.


	2. Acacia

Santana Lopez loved Brittany with all of her heart, but _yes_ there were boundaries. Santana never played the victim. She didn't want to be known as a girl with a heart. She wanted to be known as the girl who was strong, the one who didn't take anyone's crap, but there were so many things that didn't work.

Santana was _sensitive_. Ugh, she hated the word. She'd never admit it, but she was. Whenever anyone insulted her, she'd either strike back with violence or she'd break down.

Quinn ratted her out to Sue about her boob job? She choked back tears and slammed Quinn into a locker. Puck chose about every other girl in the world over her? She'd go home and cry, usually with her head leaned on Brittany's shoulder, staining her Cheerios uniform with tears.

But it was that sensitivity that had brought her and Brittany together after all, so she couldn't hate it that much.

During sixth grade, Santana was in a group of kids that weren't the most well-behaved. She'd hung with kids from her neighborhood and yeah, one would eventually pick a fist fight with some prep, but they were all right enough. Santana was smart enough not to get sucked into their serious stuff.

Brittany was in a group of girls she'd known through seven years of various dance classes. Even though most of the girls were bossy and rolled their eyes at most of the things Brittany said, at least no one picked on her.

As the year drug on, everything in Lima Heights got more serious. Once a month, kids were expelled for being busted with drugs, the school went on lockdown because one of her neighbors had brought a knife to school, and even a quiet but sharp-eyed girl was shot in some kind of drive-by. Santana had to get out.

She figured the only thing to do was to be busy. She threw herself into her studies, claiming that her parents were forcing her to raise her grades. She took up a hip-hop dance class in a small studio a mile away. And towards the end of the year, she even tried out for cheerleading.

It was simple for Brittany to try out. She liked to dance, and she needed more extracurricular activities.

So the first day was the day that they'd teach the dances.

Santana stood two rows in front of Brittany, having been put in order by height. Santana found herself smiling through hard breaths and high kicks.

Even though Brittany was tall and a dance veteran, she couldn't see the instructor at the front of the gym, and the girl in front of her, Lindsay, was a half-second behind on every move, so she found herself focusing on a dark-haired girl in front of her with satin skin. She was good, and Brittany thought about how she'd never really talked to her.

Everything was going great until she heard Lindsay shriek, "Oh my god! Santana!"

The dark-haired girl whipped around, feeling bold eyes and a thin mouth. Everyone had stopped dancing to see what the panic was about.

"Your shorts!" Lindsay exclaimed loudly. Everyone, including Santana turn to look and there, on her gray Soffes was a blob of red.

Quinn tittered to Santana's right, taking care to move far away from Santana.

"Oh my God." Santana said.

Suddenly whispers and snickers and exclamations exploded among the girls, and tears started to bud in the Latina's eyes. She gasped and ran out of the gym, to the nearest bathroom.

Santana cried, wondering why she hadn't convinced one of her friends to accompany her. Maybe then she'd have someone on her side, someone to defend her.

Meanwhile, in light of recent events, the coaches had announced a five minute break. Brittany followed the other girls to their respective gym bags. Her friends were all laughing themselves to death making jokes about the poor girl. Brittany sipped at her water, wondering what was the right thing to do, when she picked up a little pouch out of her bag. She opened it curiously and it revealed to hold different brands of pads and tampons she forgot she had because she didn't have any use for them yet. She also had a pair of sweat pants and a just-in-case pair of underwear. Brittany picked up her bag, and walked out of the gym, into the bathroom.

She heard muffled crying. Santana probably heard her come in, but Brit said "Santana?"

"Who is it?" Santana sniffed. Brittany walked along the bathroom, searching for the stall that Santana was in.

"I'm Brittany Pierce."

"Oh. What do you want?" Santana murmured. Brittany spotted pearly white sneakers in the farthest stall.

"I want to help."

The silence was long, until it was broken by Santana unraveling another piece of toilet paper and blowing her nose into it.

"How?" Santana asked.

"I have an extra pair of underwear, and some pants, and some tampons or pads. You can borrow them, I don't mind."

"Really?"

"Of course. I'd want someone to do that for me, if they could. You know, if it were me."

"Okay." Santana agreed through the stall, her eyes on Brittany's shiny Pumas.

Brittany passed over the pouch, and the pants and the underwear. "Don't worry, they're clean I swear."

Santana giggled.

Brittany leaned against the wall and sat while Santana took care of things.

"Is everyone laughing at me?"

"Not everyone." Brittany said. It was the truth. Only the snobby girls had been really making fun of her. The others had gossiped about it for a couple of seconds, but then ended up using their time for being quiet and stretching.

Emma, one of the girls who were making fun of Santana, entered the bathroom, red-faced and gasping. "Brittany?"

"Yeah?" Brit said.

"Are you coming? The break's over."

"I'll be back in a couple minutes."

"Oh. Alright." Emma walked out, looking confused.

A couple seconds later, Santana emerged, with a bitter look on her face. She looked up at Brittany, taking in the face of her rescuer. She walked to the sink, and Brittany followed.

"Please don't leave me." Santana said.

"I won't."

"Do you have anything I could put my shorts in?"

"I have a zip-lock bag, but what about your underwear?"

"I threw them away."

"Oh."

Santana dried her hands on a paper towel, and Brittany finished tucking the shorts in her bag.

"Could you keep them in there? I don't want people to see them when we walk in."

Brittany threw them into her gym bag and washed her hands too. Santana reached over intending to zip the bag but noticed a golden flower.

It was an acacia.

"What's this?" Santana asked.

"I like flowers." Brittany answered.

"But what are these?"

"Acacias. I picked them out of my garden this morning."

Santana didn't say anything, but did zip the bag up.

Finally Santana sighed. "Thank you." She leaned against the wall of the bathroom.

"Don't mention it."

Brittany stood beside Santana.

Santana turned to look at her. "I'm scared to go back in there and have everyone staring at me."

"It's okay. I'll walk in with you. They'll be staring at me too."

"But you were just being nice. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Neither did you."

Santana sighed. It looked like she might start crying again.

"Look, I'll stay with you by your side for the next few days. If anyone says anything to you, you can go 'Do you hear anything, Brittany?' and I'll say 'Nope, nothing. Must be the wind.'" Brittany giggled at her own suggestion, and it was so endearing that Santana had to join in to.

"You pinky promise?" Santana asked, holding her pinky out, fearing she'd lose her new friend.

"Pinky promise." Brittany looped her long pale pinky with Santana's short tan one and didn't let go.

They entered the gym with their pinkies entwined and smiles on their faces.

Santana wondered if she could ever face the world like that again, with more than their pinkies entwined, like Brittany wanted, but she really couldn't take all of those stares. And whispers.

Brittany had finally given her an ultimatum at the beginning of the year. "You can either have all of me or none of me. I'll still be your friend, but we can't be more."

Santana glanced around nervously. "I'm sorry. I'm just not ready to face the world yet."

"You faced the world with me before." Brittany pointed out, bringing back the memory that Santana had just recalled.

"That was when the world was a lot smaller, Brit. And we were something else."

Brittany backed up a little and said, "I'd wait on you if I ever thought you would be ready, but I don't."

Santana gave her a look, "Well, are we still friends, then?"

"Of course. But that's all we'll ever be."


	3. Azalea

While waiting for Glee to start, everyone were talking and gossiping to each other, except Brittany was attempting to ignore Santana.

"Brit, you know you're not going to be able to keep this up for long."

Santana was right though, over the last few days Brittany found herself wondering if she could sneak over to Santana's house and fool around.

Brittany was bored. Yeah, she had Cheerios and Glee but she wouldn't go over to Santana's house because she thought her resolve would waver. She was not going to give in.

"Come on, Brit. You're just as sexually frustrated as I am."

Brittany scanned the room. Quinn was catching up with Mercedes and Sam. Kurt and Blaine were talking to Artie and Tina. Puck and Lauren were laughing over something that had happened in History, Mike hadn't showed up and Rachel was busy barking suggestions to Mr. Shue. Brittany noted that there were azaleas in the pot on Mr. Shue's desk.

Someone was missing.

Brittany looked to her right and saw Finn in the chair on the end. Rachel's bags were on the other end. Brittany deliberately stood up in the middle of another one of Santana's attempts to be persuasive.

She sat down by Finn.

"Hey, Brit."

"Hey, Finn. Why are you by yourself?"

He shrugged. "Me and Rachel broke up. "

"Again?"

"She thought I was too immature for her."

"That's dumb. You're totally mature. When you borrowed my coloring book, you stayed in the lines."

Finn smiled a small smile and shrugged again.

She glanced at Santana who sat with her arms crossed and her lips pursed.

"Hey, Finn, do you want to go out with me?"

"What?" He sputtered.

"Do you want to be my boyfriend?" She rephrased.

"I mean, I don't-"He was quiet for a minute. He looked at Brittany with her hopeful aquamarine eyes and sighed. "Okay."

"Yay!"

Glee started and Santana looked over to Finn and Brittany and felt like steam was coming out of her ears. Brittany was sitting so close to Finn that their legs were touching.

Santana ignored that it had been her that pushed Brittany to him, but everything she said was true.

Her eyes sharpened like a hawk when Finn put his arm around Brittany. She couldn't imagine why Brittany would go for someone as idiotic as that brute. Brittany could totally get someone sexier and smarter easily. Yeah, they were each other's first kiss, but that was a dare.

In eighth grade, things had changed. Santana and Brittany were best friends, and although the snobs were still snobs, they'd accepted Santana, and a new girl who'd transferred that year, Quinn. After all, they were all cheerleaders.

It was Matt Rutherford's fourteenth birthday party, which was thrown at his house, in his basement. They'd danced around, eating Cheetos and drinking punch happily. It was mostly just the cheerleaders and the jocks there, but some people had crashed, like Rachel Berry who was yelled at because she kept singing the songs at the top of her lungs.

Noah Puckerman had begged Matt to let him put beer in the punchbowl, but Matt refused saying that his mom would kill him if they got caught. So Puck downed the beer and put the bottle in the middle of the room and everyone gathered around in a circle.

Brittany, decked out in a purple shirt and white shorts with matching accessories made a worried face to Santana. Even though Brittany had been the one to help Santana, Santana was clearly the superior one. Santana tried to tutor Brittany, Santana told Brittany where to sit in class, Santana told Brittany when she'd try to call her.

"San, I've never kissed anyone before." She said. "What if I don't want to play?"

"It's okay, Brittany, I haven't either, but you need to play. Look at Berry over there." They both glanced over Santana's shoulder where Rachel sat with her arms crossed looking at all the teenagers. "She's just scared that she'll poke someone's eye out with her huge nose."

"But-"

"Look, don't even think about it. Pretend you're kissing Zac Efron or something."

"Okay…"

They took their respective spots in the circle and it was kind of fun seeing some girls chicken out and boys attempting to stick their tongue in the girls' throats.

Until it was Finn Hudson's turn.

He cleared his throat; his voice had been cracking lately and leaned forward to nervously spin the bottle, which circled the circle of teens twice, until the opening of the bottle pointed straight to Brittan. Her blue eyes widened, and she felt Santana smile at her.

She looked around, and to Finn who swallowed loudly. She leaned forward, towards the middle of the circle and Finn did, too, following her lead, until they were an inch away from each other.

Someone giggled off to Finn's left, but Brittany just looked into Finn's brown eyes with her light blue ones, until his eyelids closed, and hers did too, and they leaned forward, until their lips touched. Brittany was pretty sure Puck whistled. The kiss was very short, but very sweet for their first kiss.

Santana recalled Brittany sleeping over at her house that night, griping over how the bottle had never landed on her, but grilling her about how it felt and if Finn was a good kisser, or if she was a good kisser. Santana asked so many questions about it, Brittany cracked near midnight.

"Santana! If you want to know soooooo badly, just kiss me already. Brittany was kidding off course, but when the thought of her lips crashing against Santana's, she didn't pull away when Santana muttered, "Fine," and leaned over to press her lips to the blonde's.

Brittany liked it as much as she liked Finn's and giggled and said, "See?" and turned over on the other side of Brittany's bed to go to sleep.

Santana stayed up though, replaying her first kiss in her mind over and over again, until she fell asleep with the vision dancing behind her eyes.

Santana caught herself thinking about Brittany and looked over to her and Finn. They were discussing something kind of intensely, too intensely for Brittany, and Santana thought she caught the words, "Yeah!", "Lucky charms", and "Unicorns." She snickered at them, acting like it didn't bother her at all.

Brittany would be back in her arms in a week.


	4. Heliotropes and Primroses

About a week later, Santana walked with Brittany to Brittany's car, a little green bug. "So, Brit, how are you and the Giant doing? Haven't ya'll broken up yet?" Santana already knew the answer to that.

She walked into Breadstix with her family for their 'monthly family dinner' two days ago and it had finally been Santana's choice to pick the place. So she walked in with her parents, her dad checking a page about some kind of surgery and her mom told Santana, "Hey, isn't that your friend Brittany over there?"

Santana eyes looked to where her mother's were and landed on Brittany and she saw Brittany sitting at a table alone. Santana smiled confusedly, wondering why Brittany had gone to Breadstix by herself when she saw Finn slide into the booth beside her. For some reason, it really bothered her that Finn and Brittany were sitting beside each other, not across, like her and Brittany used to.

Brittany smiled brightly at Finn and he put his arm around her and she leaned her head on her shoulder drowsily, probably sleepy after having eaten. He smiled too and kissed her on the top of the head, and Brittany looped her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss right on the mouth.

Without thinking, Santana turned around right out of Breadstix, feeling numb. "Can we go somewhere else, please?" she asked her parents sassily. "It's way too crowded in there."

Brittany gave Santana a withering look. "You mean Finn? We're still together. I love him." She said simply.

Santana gave her a pitying frown. "Britt, you've been together for a week. You can't love him," she said absent-mindedly plucking a heliotrope from her back-pocket, something she'd found on the sidewalk earlier, and handing it to Brittany, but it didn't make her smile like it usually did.

Brittany unlocked her tiny car, placed the flower on her dashboard, and made a sad look at Santana's disapproval. "I do love him, and for that whole week he's been nothing but sweet and loving to me, which is more than I can say for you. He's going to lose his virginity to me tonight." She told Santana, making Santana's heart squeeze painfully. Sure, Brittany had sex with guys before, but she was never with them before.

Santana rolled her eyes, hoping it'd get rid of the immediate tears that had sprung there. "Finn lost his virginity to me, remember?" The Latina said impatiently and angrily.

"He said it doesn't count if it doesn't come with feelings. I agree. It's way better with feelings."

Santana blinked for a couple of seconds, forcing her body not to rack with sobs, then she whispered, "Did it count with us?"

Brittany looked away from the smaller girl, and whispered, "Not anymore."

A couple seconds later, when the blonde turned around. Santana was gone, but she could see her in her red Mustang on the other end, seeing tears fall down her face. Seeing her like that made Brittany want to hug her and run her fingers through her hair and making it all better like she used to, but she couldn't take it back now.

She sighed and turned her keys to crank but the engine just rolled over. She scrunched up her eyebrows and tried again. Nothing.

A tap on the window made her jump but she smiled when she saw it was Finn. She opened the car door, and said, "Hey, Finn!" and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek.

"Are you having car troubles?" He asked her.

"My car's being stupid." Brittany pouted.

Finn glanced around, walking around the car. "I think you left your headlights on." He told the blonde.

Brittany just gave him a frustrated thinking look and he thought it was so cute. He gently touched her furrowed eyebrows, and took her by the waist. "Looks like you're coming home with me." He teased, even though she was going to follow him in her car anyways. Burt and Carole were going on a weeklong honeymoon or something and Kurt was going with Blaine to audition for some kind of Broadway show, and Finn thought it'd be the perfect time.

_Yes, most people would probably think we were moving too fast_, he thought, _but I really do love her and she's the best kisser ever and she's beautiful_.

Brittany took his hand and left her bookbag in her car, only letting go to climb in but immediately taking ahold of his hand when they both settled in. She turned up the radio and heard Sheryl Crow's "If it Makes You Happy' playing and she turned it up louder and started singing loudly along with it, making Finn smile and sing along too, even though he didn't really know the song.

She grinned at him as they walked into his bedroom, and there was a vase of primroses waiting for her. He looked at her for a couple of seconds before she started kissing him hard, expertly slipping her tongue in his mouth and as they broke apart for breath, she said, "I love you, Finn."

Finn looked shocked, then his expression slowly turned into that adorable crooked smile that Brittany loved and he kissed her oh-so-gently, reminding her of that very first kiss.

"I love you too, Brittany." He said, before laying her down on the bed.


End file.
